Her skin is splodged, her eyes are red and swollen. She’s been crying. She’s hugging her knees to her chest. She looks so small and vulnerable, like a child.
“Cordelia,” I say quietly, upset by her state, not sure what to do.
“I assume you’ve seen the news,” Lady Meade says, turning to face me. Lord Meade won’t even look at me.
“No,” I say truthfully. “What’s happened?”
In response, she types something into her phone, waiting for the search results to appear. The room remains silent. My eyes flicker to Tom, but his are empty, fixed on the floor.
I close my eyes in resignation. A journalist must have seen us. There must have been a photographer lurking somewhere, behind the parked cars on the other side of the road maybe, waiting patiently for a money shot, for one of the famous Meade family to make a mistake. And they got it, all right. They got the bridesmaid making out with the brother.
Lady Meade approaches me, the phone held out so I can see the headlines up on the screen.
THE SWANN SCANDAL!
How a family covered up the mistakes of drug-obsessed wild child, Lady Cordelia
ARISTOCAT-FIGHT!
New claims that former best friends Lady Cordelia and Lady Annabel fell out over Lady Cordelia’s alleged drug addiction and the night she took it too far
LADY CORDELIA DRUG DRAMA!
The truth behind the socialite’s disappearance from the limelight
My stomach drops. I’m so horrified, I can’t speak. I stare at the phone, reading the headlines over and over. And then it dawns on me why they wanted me to come over. Why they won’t look me in the eye. I know what they’re thinking before Lady Meade says it.
“We need to know who you told,” she says calmly.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” I say softly at first, then raise my voice, angry and hurt that they can possibly think this of me. “I didn’t tellanyone.”
“It had to be you,” Cordelia says weakly. “It had to be.”
“Cordelia, I didn’t tell a soul! I would never do that to you! I don’t know how they found out but, I swear, I did not tell anyone. It must say who they got this information from,” I reason, my voice shaking at the injustice of it all. “It has to say in the articles who—”
“It says a source close to Lady Cordelia,” Lady Meade informs me.
“It wasn’t me!”
“It can’t have been anyone else!” Cordelia cries, standing up to face me, her eyes bloodshot, a tear rolling down her face as the betrayal clouds her brain. “No one else knows!”
“Annabel knows,” I croak, desperately trying to think. “Maybe one of her family—”
“Why would they tell now? After all this time of keeping it a secret?”
“Ned would never allow it,” Lord Meade growls, shaking his head. “It wasn’t them.”
“I did not tell anyone,” I say firmly, clenching my fists. “Cordelia, you can’t think that I—”
“Funny how I tell you and then a few days later it’s splashed everywhere across the press.” She runs a hand through her hair, her eyes wild with chaos. “God, I’m so stupid! I’m so stupid to have trusted you! I knew this would happen! It always does.”
“Cordelia!” I plead, stepping toward her, prompting her to recoil from me. “I swear I didn’t tell anyone! This wasn’t me! You have to believe me!”
“Why should I? Why should I believeyou?”
“Because you know I would never do that!”
“I thought we were friends,” she says quietly, and for a second her temper’s vanished and all that’s left is her hurt.
